Straight on 'til Morning
by mon-petit-pois
Summary: "Momma, why don't I have fairymarks like you?" T/Z.


"This one, Li-Li?"

Lena shook her head, shivering as her wet hair brushed against her rosy cheeks. "No. Dinker-bell."

Tony sighed and sat _Corduroy_ down on the pink comforter. "Momma just finished reading _Peter Pan_ to you last night, sweetie-pie."

The little girl grinned sheepishly. "Again, Daddy?"

"_Again?_" His mouth hung open in a playful manner, and she giggled.

"Wanna go to Never-wand." She stuck her chin out stubbornly and crossed her tiny arms against her chest. "Wanna read about the _fairies." _There was a wonder in her voice and her eyes went wide at the last word, spoken with so much reverence that her father wouldn't dare say no.

"Alright," he gave in, reaching for the book laying on the nightstand. "But only one chapter. Then you have to go to sleep."

The three year old grinned and squirmed in her big-girl-bed that they'd assembled the week before. "Promise I'll go sleep really really _really_ fast, Daddy."

He smirked and flipped to the first page. "_All children, except one, grow up…"_

…

"Can you do my hair like yours, Momma?"

Ziva looked down from the griddle where she was cooking their morning breakfast to find her daughter staring up at her with big brown eyes. "Your hair looks very pretty the way it is, _motek._" Lena shook her head vigorously.

"But I want it like _yours_," she insisted, her hands poised on her hips. It almost made her laugh, and her husband's voice echoed in her head. _The attitude on that girl. She's just like her mother. _He'd punctuated that statement with a kiss, and the memory made her smile.

"You want me to curl it, yes?" After Lena's birth, she no longer had the time to straighten her hair every morning. She let it grow wild and curly, and when Tony admitted that he preferred it natural she'd decided to keep it that way. Since then it had become a signature part of her look. Lena, however, had inherited her father's straight, light hair, much to Tony's chagrin.

The toddler beamed up at her mother with a toothy grin. "Pwease? Just like you."

Ziva chuckled. "Let me go get dressed, and then I will do you hair. Okay?" She bent over and pressed a kiss to her daughter's forehead before turning off the griddle and heading into the room she shared with Tony.

Lena headed over to the couch and sat, swinging her dangling legs back and forth, back and forth. She tried being patient just like she was supposed to, but she hated waiting. After a few minutes she hopped of the couch and walked down the hall to her parents' room, peeking through a crack in the doorway. Surely Momma was almost done?"

Her mother was leaning over, rifling through her dresser drawer for a shirt. She wasn't wearing one—just a bra. Lena didn't have to wear a bra. Bras were for big-girls, her momma said, which confused her because she _was_ a big-girl because she had a big-girl-bed. Maybe she was only a half-way big-girl?

Lena didn't have a bra, and she _definitely _didn't have the long, skinny lines that ran down her mother's back. She frowned. What were those? She'd never seen them before. She made a mental post-it-note to ask about them later.

Lena waited until her mother had put on a shirt before pushing open the door. "You ready, Momma?"

Her mother crossed the floor and picked her up, carrying her to the bathroom and sitting her on the cold sink. Lena was a little afraid of the gold stick, because Momma had on her serious-face when she'd told her, "Lena, do not touch this. It can get very hot and you will hurt yourself."

"Like matzo soup?"

"Hotter."

Lena's eyes went wide and she did not try to touch the stick. Her momma touched it, but she was really, really careful. When she'd finished, she turned Lena around to let her see her reflection in the mirror. The little girl's eyes went wide and she gasped.

"I look just like you!"

Ziva smiled and planted a kiss on Lena's cheek from behind, then rested her chin on her daughter's shoulder. "I love you, _mal'akhi hakatan._ My little angel."

Lena tilted her head. "Are angels like fairies?"

"I believe so."

She smiled brightly. "I like being your little fairy."

…

Lena thought about the stripes on her mother's back a lot that day. Why did Momma have those marks and she didn't? Before she went to sleep in her big-girl-bed that night, she stood in front of the mirror and twisted this way and that, wondering if maybe if she looked in just the right way she would have the marks, too. That way she could be _just _like Momma.

But she didn't, so she went to sleep sad even after Daddy read to her about Tinkerbell and Peter Pan.

…

In her dream that night, Grandpa Gibbs' Basement-boat sailed her straight to Neverland. It was a very happy dream, especially because Momma and Daddy were there. In her dream they all could fly, but Momma was special because Momma was a _fairy,_ with actual wings that sparkled in the sunlight. She glittered with fairy dust and always had her hands on her hips, just like Tinkerbell.

She bolted upright in her bed that morning, eyes wide.

_Was Momma a fairy?"_

Lena closed her eyes and thought very, very hard, trying to remember what the lines on her mother's back had looked like. Could they really have been…?

She slid out of the covers and into her fuzzy slippers. The morning was cold and she shivered as she pulled her pajama shirt over her head and looked in the mirror, twisting again and again. She was disappointed once more.

But if those lines were where her Momma's wings should be, then what happened? Had a Bad-Guy cut them off? Was it Captain Hook? She remembered Momma saying something about Daddy's work, that he chased Bad-Guys. She also remembered that her mother used to work with him. Maybe something bad had happened when she was work-partners with Daddy?

She was sad. What kind of person cuts off a fairy's wings? It's a very mean thing to do, very Captain-Hook-like. She hoped Daddy caught him.

But maybe Momma hadn't lost her wings after all! Maybe she was just hiding them. Maybe those lines—in her head she called them fairymarks—were just where her wings came out. Maybe in order to marry Daddy, who she was _convinced_ was a Lost Boy because he didn't have a Momma or a Daddy of his own around to take care of him anymore, she'd had to put her wings away. Maybe they were still there, just _away,_ like Lena's toys were when she put them in their drawers.

Did that make Lena a half-fairy?

Every morning after that, the first thing she did was look in the mirror. She twisted this way and that, looking over her shoulder to find her own fairymarks. Every day she was a little disappointed. How could she be just like her Momma if she didn't have fairymarks? She could have all of the curls and all of the car-go-pants and all of what Daddy called _attitude_ that she wanted, but if she couldn't have fairymarks she couldn't be a fairy like her mother.

…

"_The End._" Ziva flipped the book shut and sat it on the table. She was in charge of the bedtime story on the nights that Tony was working late on a case. "Are you sick of this book yet, _motek?_ "

She shook her head and kicked her restless feet. "Never!" She wasn't tired but she'd promised that if her mother read to her she'd be super-good and go right to bed, so she didn't say so. "Thank you, Momma."

"You're welcome. Sweet dreams." She kissed her daughter's forehead but when she pulled away, the little girl grabbed her hand.

"Wait. Momma, can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"Why don't I have fairymarks like you?"

Ziva cocked her head to the side, her brows knitting together. "What are fairymarks?"

Lena ran her fingers down her mother's back. "Fairymarks. Where your wings used to be."

For a moment, Ziva was speechless. The innocence in her daughter's question stunned her, left all words unreachable.

"Momma? Did I say something bad?"

Ziva shook her head and leaned forward, wrapping her daughter in a tight embrace. "Never grow up," she whispered. Her eyes felt wet.

Lena beamed. "I won't. I'll do just what Peter says." She paused for a second. "But does that mean I'll never get wings? I don't have fairymarks. 'M not just like you anymore."

Ziva pulled back and placed her hands on her daughter's tiny shoulders. "You do not need to be just like me. You are your own person, Lena."

Lena's big eyes stared back at her mother's, and they blinked a few times before closing. She slumped back down against her pillow. "Okay. I love you, Momma. Have good dreams," she slurred, her voice already thick with sleep.

Ziva kissed her daughter a one more time. "_Laila tov,_ _yafa sheli._ Good night, my beautiful. I hope you know what a blessing you are."

She blinked away tears and left the room.

…

Two years later she lost her first tooth, and she almost screamed with excitement.

That night, she tucked it under her fluffy pillow and lay down, but she could not sleep. Her tongue played with the new hole in her line of teeth as she lay patiently awake, _determined_ to catch this Tooth Fairy in the act.

Her eyelids were drooping and she was in serious danger of falling asleep before she heard the door creak open. Immediately she closed her eyes and evened her breath, letting her body go limp even as she heard foot steps right in front of her face. Gentle fairy-hands reached under her head and made the exchange. Lena remained still until she heard the footsteps creep away, and she cracked open an eyelid. In the moonlit room she could see the petite silhouette of her mother.

Lena smiled and fell asleep to the words _I knew it I knew it I knew it _echoing in her head.

…

It was many years later, when Lena was in Grade 4 with Mrs. Anderson, that a little boy in her class told her Santa didn't exist.

Of course she hadn't wanted to believe it, but the more she thought about it the more sense it made. Santa was Momma and Daddy. Elves don't make toys. Reindeer don't fly.

And that got her thinking: do fairies fly? To which was the answer that she had never seen a real-life fairy. Not a Tinker-bell fairy, anyhow. She'd only ever seen Momma and her strange fairy marks.

It was a sad day, and Lena wondered if maybe this was what it meant to be a big-girl. Bras and no-more-fairies.

She came home that day and looked her mother straight in the face and said, "Fairies aren't real."

To which her mother answered: "Oh, Lena. Who has told you such things?" She squatted down and took her daughter's shoulders.

Lena shrugged against her mother's hands. "It doesn't matter. I guess I kinda knew for a while. But I didn't want to… to admit it."

Ziva tilted her head to the side. "You are sad, _motek?"_

Lena bit her lip. "Yeah, but… mostly because of your fairymarks. If they aren't where your wings used to be, then what are they?"

Her mother hesitated, brushing Lena's hair from her face in a gentle, pensive motion. "A Bad-Guy took me, and he hurt me. But I am okay now, I promise. There is nothing for you to worry about."

Lena frowned. "Daddy saved you, right? He saved you from the Bad-Guy?"

"Yes, _motek,_ he and Grandpa Gibbs and Uncle Timmy saved me. It was very scary but I am okay now." Ziva's voice was calm and soothing, so Lena tucked her head into her mother's shoulder.

"You're brave, Momma. Just like Tinkerbell. Even she got captured by Captain Hook."

Ziva's voice was thick. "Yes, I suppose she did."

"And she still lived happily ever after. Just like you," Lena pointed out, her ear pressed up against her mother's heart.

Ziva battled the lump in her throat. "You and your father are my happily ever after, _hakatan sheli._ I love you with my whole heart."

With her daughter clutched to her chest and her wedding bad snugly on her finger, she had never felt more complete.

…

_A/N: I hope you guys liked this! I realize it was quite sappy but hey I hardly ever write happy fluffy things._

_Please leave a review and let me know what you thought!_


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